TV Tuesday: Sons of Anarchy

In an effort to try and keep blogging, I thought I might give take a stab at being an arm chair critic to give me something to write about on a somewhat regular basis. And to finally give up the ghost of saying I'm NOT addicted to TV ('Hi my name is Michele, and I'm a TV addict). Since it is the start of the new TV season I figured I'd give my 2cents on the new and the old and the good, the bad and the ugly! This week, I'll talk about the new FX series, Sons of Anarchy (SoA).

First a note on FX...FX has some smokin' great shows. I know Jen is a huge fan of The Shield and if you haven't seen Damages you really need to check it out. Also there is of course Nip/Tuck, The Riches and Rescue Me. FX is definitely not afraid to go out on a limb with their programming. So when I saw previews of SoA I thought I'd give it a chance and in a word, I'm intrigued.

Here's the premise...
The SoA are a motorcycle 'club' from the small town of Charming, CA (yep, a real place, I googled it!). The gang was started by two friends, Vietnam vets John Teller (deceased) and Clay Morrow current president. The SoA are intent on keeping the 'brotherhood' alive, keeping their town safe and keeping their livelyhood, let's just say lively. As you can guess their liveyhood is less than on the up and up...they run guns.

The V.P. of the club is Jax Teller son of the founding president John (and Clay's step-son) and in the pilot we find Jax dealing with a junkie ex-wife who just gave birth to their premie son. Jax it seems has a conscious...trying to figure out if this was the path his dad had wanted for the club and him. The club itself is also under siege with a rival gang destroying their stash of guns which were due for delivery to a 'customer'.

In the pilot you meet the various different characters including Jax's Mom and Clay's Wife, Gemma, played by Katey Sagal in a very un-Peg Bundy-like turn. Gemma is all about protecting her son and later you find out the way of life of the Sons too. The great Ron Perlman, finally gets to take off the make-up of the Beast and Hellboy, plays Clay. You don't learn too much about Clay in the opening ep. but you definitely know there is more to learn about him. Jax definitely has the bad-boy with a heart of gold thing going and is played by Charlie Hunnam of the original UK version of Queer as Folk...I knew he looked familiar. In fact there are a lot of familiar faces in the cast including Drea de Matteo, Mitch Pileggi and relative new comer (but great in Mad Men) Maggie Siff.

This show really does intrigue me...I think it's because it reminds me a heck of a lot of The Sopranos (oh how I miss you Tony). I guess I've really missed my weekly supply of guns, blood, controlling mothers and bad guys with a concious. I think this show definitely has promise and I'll keep watching for now.

You can catch Sons of Anarchy on Wednesday's at 10:00pm E/P. If you have Comcast Cable, it is available ONDemand and is also being rebroadcast tonight at 11:00pm E/P on FX.